Associate Professor of Economics
Bick, an associate professor of economics, and Blandin, an assistant professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business who earned his master’s degree and PhD in economics at ASU, have collaborated on the “Real Time Labor Market Estimates During the 2020 Coronavirus Outbreak,” an ongoing national survey designed to bolster public knowledge about fast-changing labor market trends during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Considering that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS’) employment numbers are published monthly, resulting in a three-week delay, both Bick and Blandin saw a void that needed to be filled. “We knew things were happening at a faster pace,” Bick says. “It’s hard to quantify with the government data with such a time-lapse.”
To bridge the gap, Bick and Blandin collect online survey data biweekly from a sample of U.S. adults 18 years of age and older. The survey questions closely mirror the Basic Labor Market module in the Current Population Survey.
The researchers have added questions particular to the pandemic. The aim is to give both policymakers and the public needed information. “These are unprecedented times since the Great Depression or World War II,” Bick says. “During the Great Recession from 2007–09, employment fell by six percentage points over two years. Now, we see an effect two times larger over the first two months. None of us has experienced anything like that.”
Locally, Bick says the sample size within the survey was too small to address employment statistical swings in Arizona or any other individual state. The absence of an annual event this year will likely have a far-ranging impact on the food, beverage, and hospitality sectors. “We didn’t have the (typical) season of spring training baseball in Arizona,” Bick explains. “Many people spending money (in previous years) in hotels and restaurants didn’t this year. That’s a big hit for the hospitality sector.”
The recent statistical swings covered in their surveys include Bick and Blandin estimating the employment rate among working-age adults to be 69.9% during the week of Nov. 8 through 14, underpinning the steady recovery of the economy.
For those employed in February, 27% have experienced a lossin earnings (compared to 39% in April). The still rapid changes and unpredictability have left policymakers in a tough spot. “Policymakers have been flying blind,” Bick says.
In addition to some surprising data trends, another issue has cropped up — misclassification of people within the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. The April report explicitly discusses this. The number of people “employed with a job” who are not at work nearly tripled year over year. That number grew from 4 million in April 2019 to 11.5 million in April 2020. This increase is mostly driven by individuals reporting “other reasons why they were absent from work.” In April 2020, 8.1 million people were included in that category compared to 0.6 million in April 2019. Since then, the issue of misclassification still prevails but has lost importance.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics analysis of underlying data suggests this group included workers affected by the pandemic response who should have been classified as “unemployed on temporary layoff.” It is an error that happens when respondents misunderstand questions or interviewers record answers incorrectly. One exercise that should reduce the impact of the misclassification between employed/absent and not employed is to look at the share of the population that is employed and not at work.
Bick and Blandin released their latest wave of survey results on Dec. 18.
The next Bureau of Labor Statistics report is scheduled for Jan. 22, referencing the week of Jan 10–Jan 16. Bick has noticed a couple of recent developments leading to that release. Both women and the less educated were hit harder by the crisis, with their average hours down by 6.7% for women (compared to 6.7% for men) and by 7.9% for those without a college degree (compared to 5.0% for those with a college degree).
Total (work) hours per person are stabilizing as people lose jobs. “The aggregate drop in labor supply is not as stark as the data suggests,” Bick says.
Read the paper, “Real Time Labor Market Estimates During the 2020 Coronavirus Outbreak,” or the researchers’ blog post at dallasfed.org/research/rps.